In a recent POLL on www.motherinc.com.au, 1,100 mums gave us the inside-line on what IS happening behind closed doors across Australia! The stat's added up to prove there is a New Look Dad in Australian homes and there's plenty of them.

Lachlan Murdoch did it and he isn't alone. A growing number of regular dads are making the decision to quit work or dramatically change their working life, in favour of being at home to spend more quality time with the family.

The New Look Dad is a definite trend - 21st century dads are putting parenthood and family life first.

Dish-pan Hands anyone?

However, for regular dads across Australia, does this also include equally sharing the more mundane kid-related chores and childcare duties with the mum-of-the house as well?

51% of mothers stated, their husband/partner does a fair share of home duties (chores and childcare).

50% of mothers polled said their husband/partner is better now than when they first got together.

80% stated their husband/partner does 30% or less of domestic duties!

“ While the POLL shows Australia Dads have increased their input on the home-front, there is still a need to see a more equal sharing of the domestic workload, especially in families where both parents are in the paid workforce."

How can Dads help out more at home?

Is it the dads’ fault or is the workplace still a factor in preventing men from taking on more childcare and home duties? Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward’s recent discussion paper said workplaces need to start being more flexible on men. At the same time the parental leave movement is gathering pace and will enable working dads to spend more time at home and alleviate some of the workload from the mums.

Nearly half (48%) of the POLL respondents think their partner would do more if it wasn’t for work-related pressures:

10% say workplace inflexibility is a big obstacle

23% say commuting hours and long working hours or meetings mean less time helping at home

3.5% peer pressure at work/lack of understanding from workmates (presumably the single and childless ones!)

19% say there’s more financial pressure to work long hours and earn more

*Of the mums polled, 62% are working in paid employment (and 16% of these mums have three or more children). Of these working mums, 18% work full time, 27% permanent part time, the rest are flexible/casual workers or currently on maternity leave.

In paid work or not, the POLL showed that Australian mums are still doing the bulk of the chores!

What chores are 21st Century Dads doing?

25 % of dads help with child care duties including school runs, doctors appts, weekend sports activities and homework

8% of men help with the washing

9% cook or prepare meals

8% clean

14.5% do gardening and home repairs

Venus vs Mars…

Of the 52% who don’t think work plays a part in their partner’s lack of participation in domestic activities, over 20% believe it’s because their partner has no idea of the enormity of the chores involved in running a household and family on a daily basis.

And some dads are just - plain lazy!

10% prefer to pursue personal interests/hobbies/sport

9% see household chores and childcare as ‘the woman's role’

8.6% are just not interested

The affect on relationships

Many women cited the workload at home and conflict over household duties as contributing factors to relationship issues.

Over 63% of mums said they have tried to discuss imbalance in share of duties at home.

79% of women said this imbalance in duties is affecting their relationship with their partner

8% stated their sex life has suffered and they don’t have fun together

24% argue and resent their partner

motherinc.com.au runs online POLLS regularly and publishes the results in the topic section. POLL results can be accessed by contacting head office on (02) 9948 3655.